Bartender Geek

An interesting legal question:

ian@io.com — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 20:27:01 GMT

blackthornglade linked to a story from Saudi Arabia, where a family has sued a djinn living in the same house as them for harassment and theft.

Here are my thoughts on the issue, and, understand, these are VERY lay-person opinions. I could be wrong on ANY of my assumptions here, but this is what I was thinking, anyway. . .

Since it's Shari'a court, the court DOES arguably have juristiction.

The trouble with bringing court cases against non-material beings has generally been one of establishing juristiction. In US courts, there have been questions as to whether God Almighty, for instance, was properly served papers as a defendant: the claimant claimed that, as God is omniscient, God KNEW that He had been served, which should be sufficient to start things rolling, and that, as God is omnipresent, God was physically present in the courtroom, allowing Him to face His accuser, and that the trial could proceed.

However, the court wasn't convinced that it held proper juristiction.

Similar problems have come up when people have attempted to sue Satan for damages for ruining their lives.

In Iceland, elves and the like are NOT called upon to testify, nor are they usually named as defendants in cases -- rather, the court system recognizes that it exists, in part, to protect the rights of elves against human encroachment. The idea appears to be that the courts do NOT have juristiction over the elves -- and that, without a human agency demonstrating a proper respect, they might take matters into their own hands.

In Jewish law, G-d has been successfully sued, but getting redress of grievances has been difficult.

Djinns are subject to the Will of Allah, which suggests that they are subject to Shari'a law. In fact, some Djinn accepted the teachings of Mohammed, and follow Islam.

Unfortunately, there are also those who don't, and who exist to lead people astray, who are called "shaitan" --"accusers", like "Satan". There are, of course, also human shaitan.

But it seems to me that a Djinn is every bit as subject to a Shari'a court as a human is.

The question, to me, is, "Does a Shari'a court have juristiction over a NON-Muslim Djinn?" If it turns out the Djinn in question IS Muslim, of course, it's moot.

Lis was walking across the Mass Ave bridge the other day . . .

ian@io.com — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 13:00:07 GMT

Lis spent part of Saturday at the Boston Public Library, but decided to walk to MIT to wait for me to pick her up.

As she was crossing the bridge on Mass Ave, the tune of "Seasons of Love" from Rent kept going through her head.

So I finished it up for her. Feel free to take it for filk rooms if you want it.

Three hundred sixty four point four Smoots and an ear
Three hundred sixty four point four lengths plus a smidge
Three hundred sixty four point four Smoots and an ear
How do you measure the length of a bridge?

In car-lengths? In footsteps? In minutes to bike it?
In wind-chill? In heatstroke? In weakness or strength?
Three hundred sixty four point four Smoots and an ear?
How do you measure interminable length?

How about Smoots?
How about Smoots?
How about Smoots?
Measure in Smoots.
A bridge of Smoots.

Three hundred sixty four point four Smoots and an ear
Three hundred sixty four point four lengths of a man
Three hundred sixty four point four Smoots and an ear
Who came up with this furshlugginer plan?

From Cambridge to Boston
Or Boston to Cambridge
Walking over the Charles
To the end of the bridge

Tho' the bridge is named Harvard, that name's not so great
So it's been called the "Smoot Bridge" since 1958.
Remember the Smoots! Remember the Smoots!
Measure in Smoots!
Oliver Smoot! Oliver Smoot!

If they're doing reboots of various properties . . .

ian@io.com — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 23:38:11 GMT

So, yeah. It started with the 1979 property Battlestar Galactica. The reboot went REAL well. But they've now done Transformers, and are doing GI Joe, and there's a rumor that Tim Minear is going to be doing something with Alien Nation . . .

How about a Max Headroom reboot?

Lis and I were talking about this in the car, today. First: it wouldn't have to be set 20 Minutes Into The Future -- it could be set contemporary (although, obviously, with a few science fictional elements). Edison Carter wouldn't need that HUGE HONKIN' CAMERA any more -- something the size of a digital camera would be MORE than sufficient. A Bluetooth earpiece would allow him to communicate with Theora Jones, who would be able to hack into things that, in reality, wouldn't be possible, but that'd be one of the science fictional elements.

He wouldn't work for "Network 23" -- the concept of an actual network doing genuine journalism is obsolete -- but he could work as a webjournalist. And Blank Reg would also run a website.

Bryce might be an independent hacker/cyberpunk rather than working for a corp. And he'd create Max Headroom just for the heck of it. Max would be a computer worm built off of an AI/intelligent agent concept, being, of course, the OTHER important science fictional point. He'd be hunted by various agencies, including counter-cybercrime/cyberwarfare organizations, censorware providers, and even just plain old decent, hardworking anti-virus software folks.

All that is pretty easy.

But what if we go a little further?

What happens if we re-imagine Edison Carter as Chinese, or North Korean, or Iranian -- and female? Places with strong governmental restrictions on information?

Even if you kept Carter as British, those would be good places to set stories, of course. You could even do a Max Headroom show WITHOUT Edison Carter, where Max could go and help other underground journalists in repressive regimes like that. I like the idea of a repressive regime having trouble tracking down exactly WHO the upstart who's revealing what's actually going on -- because she wears a burqa, just like every OTHER woman.

The kitties have now discovered my desk. . .

ian@io.com — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 23:28:11 GMT

They HAD been just messin' with Lis and her laptop when she was computing on the bed. But they've now discovered the desktop, too.

Nick still has a cold, and is sneezing a lot. Nora continues to be a lap cat ONLY on her own terms -- if SHE decides it's time to sit on a lap, she will, whether you like it or not, and if it's NOT time, she won't. Nick, on the other hand, is happy as a shoulder cat -- in fact, our downstairs neighbor Ben was up visiting them, and Nick climbed up his trouser leg and shirt in order to sit on Ben's shoulder.

Overprotective parents are to blame for Michael Bay.

ian@io.com — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 20:02:58 GMT

Okay, fine. It's just a hypothesis.

But think about it.

The reason people go to see Michael Bay movies is to see pretty explosions. Well, maybe "pretty explosions" and "plausibly attractive people in proximity to pretty explosions."

Which is fine. I think that a desire to see pretty explosions is a perfectly natural and healthy part of the human psyche. It's one of the reasons fireworks are so great.

But I think that almost anybody would rather see a REAL explosion than a PICTURE of one, even a moving picture with Dolby Surround Sound.

When I was a kid, we blew things up and set things on fire sometimes. Because we COULD. I mean, sure, Mom got mad that time I nearly burned down the garage, but I DIDN'T burn down the garage after all, so that was fine.

Some hobbies that involve fire and/or things that go boom include shooting, camping, pyrotechnics, model rocketry, cooking, building bonfires, chemistry, and tying firecrackers to your GI Joes and Barbies.

And I believe that children can engage in all of these activities with some degree of safety, with a certain amount of adult supervision.

I believe that, given a chance to ACTUALLY blow shit up, most children and teenagers would choose that over watching a movie in which things blow up. As "most teenagers" includes "people that other teenagers might consider plausibly attractive people", this would even cover the "plausibly attractive people in proximity to pretty explosions", it would even cover THAT part.

Therefore, if we gave our children and teens a healthy outlet for these desires, we could potentially stamp out the scourge of Michael Bay movies forever.

A musical question:

ian@io.com — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 22:46:15 GMT

So, it occurred to me: my friends list is chock-full of both musically literate people and curmudgeons -- sometimes both at once.

So here's my question: is it possible to dislike Aaron Copeland music?

I mean, I can totally see liking other stuff better -- but is it possible to just not like it at all?

If you read only one opera-related post today, this is the one.

ian@io.com — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 18:26:40 GMT

Contagious enthusiasm: a potent force for good in the universe.

Nora, our kitten, now in pictures that MOVE!

ian@io.com — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 13:23:23 GMT

A video of our female kitten, Nora, seeking out things to hunt and destroy. I think she's now working on hunting abstract nouns.

ian@io.com — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 11:56:38 GMT

To everybody in the world who uses a Gregorian calendar: happy 4th of July!

To people in the United States of America: in addition, happy Independence Day!

Nick isn't a lap cat, precisely . ..

ian@io.com — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 22:29:34 GMT

(Okay, I was hoping to be able to do a larger pic than this one, but this is the one that appears to be possible. Click on it to see the full sized one.)

A photo of the kitties

ian@io.com — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 16:49:46 GMT

The following picture, of our kittens, was titled by the male kitten, who was typing at the time.

Ah, cat ownership, how I missed thee!

ian@io.com — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 01:43:54 GMT

Plus: we collected the stool sample from one of the cats.
Minus: we quite literally had to light a match afterward. (I don't think Lis had realized that that actually DOES work. . . )

Technically, nobody's ever ready for a new cat. . .

ian@io.com — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 22:28:06 GMT

Lis and I just decided that we're tired of NOT having a cat.

We now have two kittens.

There will probably be photos at some point, since that's what one does with a blog and kittens.

They came from the shelter with the names Caleb and Lucy, which are both perfectly reasonable names; we'll see if they keep the names, or if they get new ones.

Yes, this IS basically a theoretical question.

ian@io.com — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:13:22 GMT

So, it is an honor just to be nominated for a Hugo award, even if one doesn't win.

However -- does it remain an honor if the category in which you're nominated gets voted "No Award"?

(The Hugos allow the vote of "No Award" for the situation in which you HAVE read all the nominees, and you just don't think that ANY of them are good enough to deserve a Hugo. If the majority of the voting population thinks your whole CATEGORY sucks, INCLUDING your piece, is it still an honor to be nominated?)

Visited my folks yesterday

ian@io.com — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 11:12:31 GMT

My father's about sixty, sixty-five now. And he's fallen in with a bad crowd. Every morning, he goes out around sunrise to go swimming in the local lake with a bunch of long-distance swimmers.

He's been swimming miles in open water. He's been doing this for a while now.

So, I visited them yesterday, and Dad was wearing a t-shirt -- I've usually seen him, recently, wearing mainly long-sleeved shirts.

I hadn't realized: Dad is ripped¹. I could see hints of a washboard through the t-shirt, and his arms are really toned and defined.

Dad has not been in this good shape in DECADES. Possibly since I was a baby. Possibly earlier. I mean, I think he's in better shape than when he'd just come back from Vietnam and was working physical labor.

1: "Ripped" adj: having well-defined, toned muscles

I talked to my shrink about my existential fears.

ian@io.com — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 22:37:22 GMT

So, the deal is: if existential fear gets so bad that I am avoiding going to sleep to avoid facing it, I can raise my Lexapro dosage by half a pill per week.

However: if it ever gets to the point that I can have thoughts about the immensity of the universe and the smallness of humanity WITHOUT any significant emotional context, I'm to LOWER my dosage by half a pill per week.

I am to attempt to regulate my medications to make sure that I am feeling awe and even fear at these thoughts, but at a level which I can tolerate. The ACTUAL treatment I'm being prescribed is, when the existential fear becomes so great that it's hard to deal with, I'm to focus on my connections with other people, both people I'm close to like my family and friends, and ALSO my shallower but still important connections with people I work with, neighbors, and my community in general. I'm to consider myself as part of a social network which includes people who jog by my house, and the barber down the street, as much as my close friends and family.

Also -- I printed out and showed him stuff from this post.

browngirl: he LOVED your story, and recommended that I focus on the lessons in it as part of my treatment. He thought it just absolutely NAILED the importance of both considering the universal questions AND dealing with everyday life and social interactions.

Speaking just for myself: have you considered looking if anyone publishes historical short-shorts? I could see that in The New Yorker or something.

At least my week's been okay . . .

ian@io.com — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 17:13:13 GMT

This has been an awful week. Deaths of loved ones on my friends list, my aunt had a (thank G-d, very minor) stroke, my cousin had surgery (which, again, thank G-d, went very well, but still), breakups of relationships that had lasted for YEARS.

Just . . . truly awful.

You know. The kind of week that almost makes me feel guilty for having nothing significantly going wrong in my life. (Knock on wood, kein ayen ha-ra, and so forth.)

But. Yeah.

A mystery

ian@io.com — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 15:52:03 GMT

I dislike tap water, unless it goes through the Brita first.

So how come water from the hose tastes so dang good? Water from the kitchen tap = icky. Water from the outside hose = amazingly yummy.

Something I just posted as a comment in someone else's livejournal. . .

ian@io.com — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:59:10 GMT

She asked, rhetorically, "Why is it when my mom is visiting, I inevitably regress to seventeen?"

I said:

Because EVERYONE regresses to seventeen when their parents are visiting.

If you have practice, you can avoid regressing for, oh, about twenty-four hours. Some people manage avoiding it for forty-eight hours.

Having a trained partner with you who can help keep you In Adulthood can add a bit to the time.

With all that, there can therefore be a few people out there who can manage three days with their parents without regressing. And making sure that you're spending no more than, say, four hours a day with parents, because you are doing independent touristy things, or they are, can stretch it out even further.

Thus, it is a good idea to limit parental visits to no more than, say, four days under absolutely optimal conditions. And that's stretching it. For most people, one day is perfectly sufficient.

Lis, for instance, LOVES her father, and he loves her, and they get along FAMOUSLY. For about two days. After which they begin butting heads. Unless they make sure to schedule in time away from each other during the visit. So Lis makes sure to visit with her brother, grandparents, and so, on her own. Which is good for its own sake, and also extends the non-head-butting time.

Me, I live close to my parents, so I don't have any extended visits -- I can just go over for an afternoon. But when my sister comes up to visit from Florida? After four days or so, KA-BLAM. Mom and Leila love each other deeply. And shorter visits might be a good idea. . . .

Lis and I just came back from a three-and-a-half-day surprise visit to her parents in Florida. And that was about as long a visit as would work well. We all had a great time, and didn't end up in conflicts, and had we stayed longer, we would have.

Because that's what happens. Even in families with excellent relationships.

Pest control thoughts

ian@io.com — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 19:05:43 GMT

So, around here, a couple of pest control issues that show up -- squirrels in walls, and geese everywhere. Pigeons can be something of a nuisance, too.

What do these three nuisance animals have in common?

They all taste good.

The biggest thing is geese. Canada geese are quite annoying, even somewhat damaging to our local ecosystems (especially if you count "a golf course" as an ecosystem, but even if you're being reasonable -- the amount of goose poo they leave around actually does cause algae blooms in local ponds).

I think that we should allow permanent, year-round knife hunting season on geese. If you can get close enough to a goose to slit its throat, you should be allowed to do so and take it home and eat it.

This will NOT significantly reduce the number of geese, I don't think, but it ought to make them less aggressive toward humans. . . .

I was busy yesterday, so I didn't post this.

ian@io.com — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 14:55:19 GMT

Ten years ago yesterday, I did the best thing I ever did in my life. I married Lis.

I said the following:

I pledge myself to you -- body, mind, and spirit. I promise to respect, honor, and cherish you. I promise to listen to you and be trustworthy towards you. I promise to be honest with you. I promise to support you physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

I promise to stand by you and to back you up. I promise never to shame you. When we fight, I promise to fight fair.
I pledge that, as of this day, I shall put us as a couple, and any children that we have, above all else. I pledge that our family will be my primary concern. And I pledge to provide a Jewish household for our family.

In all things, I promise to be your equal and opposite -- the other half of our now-mended soul that was split at the beginning of time and is only today being made whole.

Without you, I am not complete.

So: today is the day to check how I'm doing.

I've actually done pretty darned well this year. I am doing MUCH better at the physical and emotional support. I'm taking better care of the house, making a better home for us.

Lis sent me a SomeECards:
http://www.someecards.com/viewcard/c1954204d1586533ea4c5f1ef548f959

It says, "Let's never give up on trying to change each other."

The thing is -- we actually DO manage to change each other, and for the better. As You Know, it's a TERRIBLE idea to enter into a relationship with the expectation of changing your partner -- but we do. She's made me get my depression under control. She's made me learn to be more what I ought to be. I couldn't do these things without her.

Existential fear is a lot like food poisoning.

ian@io.com — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 03:02:12 GMT

No, really. It is. They feel mostly the same.

You know that feeling when you've got food poisoning and you are lying in bed, and you start to get nauseous, and you know that this is going to either be miserable for a while, or be miserable for a while and then you'll end up puking, but you're not puking yet, and maybe, if you're VERY VERY STILL, it won't get to the "puking" stage. And your skin breaks out in cold prickly sweat and you feel simultaneously hot and cold.

Yeah.

It's EXACTLY that feeling. The actual stomach part feels SOMEWHAT different, but even that is similar. There are times when I've woken up with food poisoning, and it's taken me a couple minutes to figure out whether I've got food poisoning or existential fear.

Last night, what triggered it was thinking about the Pyramids. And how, when they were built, they were faced in limestone, so that they were gleaming white monuments shining across the sand.

And that the ancient Egyptian culture was a culture. With people in it. Who had entire lives. That an ancient Egyptian peasant who farmed the banks of the Nile had a life. And experiences, every bit as real as mine, in a world every bit as rich as mine.

As did a Roman citizen. Or someone living under the rule of the Golden Horde, or in the Caliphate.

And that all those lives are real, as real as mine.

And that, therefore, mine is only as real as theirs.

And that ALL of these lives happen on a single planet, in an amount of time that is insignificant.

And that, in fact, it's quite possible that the universe itself keeps collapsing and reforming, with different basic universal constants.

That EVERYTHING is insignificant.

That my life is finite and tiny.

And, at night, I feel that.

And it feels like food poisoning.

The thing is -- Lis, for instance, can think all these same thoughts. And they don't bother her. Because, well, why SHOULD they?

I have no explanation as to why I feel the insignificance of our universe, our planet, our time, humanity, all human endeavor, and my own life, so viscerally. And I MEAN "viscerally". "Viscerally" means "relating to the viscera" -- the internal organs in the torso. And that's where I feel it. In my guts. As nausea.
There's no way to think my way out of this. The nausea-inducing insignificance is real. I see things in perspective -- and that IS the perspective.

And so I don't understand why other people DON'T feel this. Why isn't every single human being a quivering mass of horror, quaking at the sheer enormousness of the universe?

. . . but why SHOULD anyone feel this? In realistic, everyday terms, none of this matters. So why can people like Lis focus on the fact that this sheer vastness of everything is basically irrelevant to our lives, and other people, like me, can't?

We have achieved lilac-a-tude!

ian@io.com — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 10:56:29 GMT

Yesterday morning, I picked up ten lilac bushes from Syrigna Plus, a lilac nursery in West Newbury, MA. And I planted all ten.

I now understand the purpose of the fieldstone wall. "If I spent this much effort GETTING this damn rock, it damn well better be WORTH something." The very first bush I planted -- I started digging the hole, and needed to pull out a rock the size of my head.

I've been keeping all the rocks I'm pulling out. Because those rocks BETTER be good for something, given how hard they are to get. I've got a pretty darned big pile of 'em.

An open letter to Paul Dini, after seeing his Batman: The Brave and the Bold episode

ian@io.com — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 01:46:59 GMT

Mr Dini:

Put down the Bat-Mythos and back away slowly.

I just talked to a guy who had a worse day at work than you did.

ian@io.com — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 16:22:50 GMT

Not TODAY, but a while back.

A guy came by to check out our squirrels/tribbles in the wall situation, and we were talking. There was this one time that he was hired to remove a raccoon. Anyway, it's the middle of the day -- the thing breaks out of the trap. And it's rabid. He's grabbed the thing and is desperately trying to keep it from biting him, while attempting to beat it to death, or at least senseless, before he's bitten. The thing is screaming a wild banshee rabid raccoon who wants to eat your face off kind of scream.

He finally gets the upper hand on the monster, and gets a chance to get a couple good whacks at it. Which is when the lady of the house comes by, to see him beating this screaming raccoon to death.

So, really, that's going to be my new baseline for "how bad could it be, REALLY?"

"Is this job better or worse than being observed beating a screaming rabid raccoon to death?"